"Bubble" In Riskiest Credit Exceeds 2008 Peak

As we warned two months ago, the bubble in credit markets (which if you ask anyone at the Fed, except Jeremy Stein, does not exist) is nowhere more evident than in the explosive growth of so-called cov-lite loans. While total volumes of cov-lite loans are already at record, as the FT reports, we now have 55% of new leveraged loans come in “cov-lite” form, far eclipsing the 29% reached at the height of the leveraged buyout boom just before the financial crisis. LBO multiples have reached record highs and demand for secutizations of these levered loans (CLOs) has surged on the back of the Fed's repressive push of investors into more-levered firms and more-levered instruments.

The amount of riskier loans offering fewer protections to lenders contained in packages of debt sold to investors have hit record levels, amid resurgent lending markets and a continued thirst for higher returns.

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as “covenant-lite” loans, or loans that come with fewer protections for lenders, have this year become the norm in the US, CLO managers have been forced to relax the limits on the percentage of the loans that can go into their deals.

Already, 55 per cent of new leveraged loans come in “cov-lite” form, eclipsing the 29 per cent reached at the height of the leveraged buyout boom just before the financial crisis.

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“CLO managers have clearly taken notice of this trend, and structures have come with more relaxed caps on cov-lites this year.”

While the majority of CLOs sold last year had a 40 per cent limit on the amount of cov-lite loans that could be bought by the vehicles, a 50 per cent cap has become the industry standard in 2013, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.

At least three deals have come to market this year with a 70 per cent limit.